by Logan Jacobs
I glanced at Ainsley, who stood as straight as she possibly could. To the outsider, she looked like the picture of calm determination, as if heading out on dangerous reconnaissance missions to find the home of monstrous invaders was just another Tuesday.
Actually, I had no idea what day it was.
However, I could see the slight tremble in Ainsley’s perfectly pink lips, the way her eyes focused just above the crowd of village women so none of them would see the fear buried in their blue depths and, most importantly, I could see the way she twisted her fingers around the handle of her bow, again and again, as if she needed to remind herself that she was her own protection.
“Hey,” I murmured as I sidled up to her. “If you’re scared, you don’t have to go.”
“Yeah.” Mira nodded in agreement, and I knew she’d also caught on to Ainsley’s nerves. “Nobody will judge you for it.”
“Thank you,” Ainsley whispered as she looked between Mira and me hesitantly. “But I must go. For my people. Ben helped me realize I am their leader, and leaders do the things necessary to ensure the safety of their people.”
Mira nodded in understanding, and I reached out to touch Ainsley’s soft cheek. Her determination filled me with pride.
“You’re so damn brave.” I smiled and leaned down to kiss her softly.
When I pulled away, I could see a new courage well in Ainsley’s clear eyes, like my tender affection had filled her back up again.
“Children of the Goddess,” Ainsley intoned as she turned to face the other women, and her voice was firm and strong once more. “We give thanks to Nira as we set off on this journey, and we ask her to watch over us, her children, and grant us protection from the enemies.”
“Thank you, Goddess,” the crowd all replied in unison.
With that, we picked up our packs and weapons and climbed down the tree, and Ainsley and Jemma both kept their faces turned upward as they watched the faces of their kinfolk disappear behind the layers of branches.
Once we’d navigated down the tree and around our hidden traps, I paused to take stock of where we needed to go.
“The hut is that way.” I pointed ahead of us. “Have you ever traversed that part of the island? Do you know what to expect?”
I couldn’t help but remember the first time Mira and I had ventured into the jungle back home, where we’d been met with all sorts of dangerous creatures we hadn’t expected. I, at least, wanted to be prepared if that was going to happen today.
“We’ve stayed in this part of the island in recent years,” Jemma replied. “Whenever we would make camp in that direction, the warg attacks would grow worse.”
“That makes sense.” Mira nodded. “Since the devils have made their home over there. Let’s go.”
Mira gritted her teeth and strode off ahead of us. Her anger seeped out of her like a thick aura, and I knew exactly why. The warrior was understandably hungry for revenge in any form she could get it. She’d taken her revenge on the orcs at home, but she wanted to destroy them at their very core.
So did I.
We trekked along quietly for a few hours, wary of any possible wargs who might come across our path, but we were relatively undisturbed. This was a good thing. I didn’t want to take the risk that one of the wargs might get away and warn the others.
The relative silence of the forest was peaceful. I enjoyed the feel of nature around me and relished in the moments of quiet as we walked along the forest floor. Jemma’s and Ainsley’s footsteps were absolutely silent, and Mira and I attempted to make as little noise as possible. We knew very well there was never a guarantee we were alone.
I’d lost track of how long we’d walked for, but the sun was high in the sky by the time my stomach growled and insisted on being fed.
“Ben, was that you?” Mira snorted as she turned back around to give me a playful punch.
“A man’s gotta eat,” I told her with a wink. “Let’s stop here for a moment.”
“Oh, thank the Goddess,” Ainsley sighed, and she and Jemma sank straight down to the ground, so exhausted their toned legs seemed to almost give out underneath them. “I thought you’d never stop.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” I demanded. The last thing I needed, or wanted, was for Ainsley and Jemma to keel over and pass out from exhaustion. I’d forgotten they were still pretty weak from malnourishment, and these long treks through the forest probably took more out of them in than they let on.
“We didn’t want to be a bother,” Jemma replied with a sweet but tired smile.
“Guys, seriously, if you’re getting too tired, Mira and I are happy to stop,” I told them, and I made sure to look each woman in her pretty eyes so they’d know I was dead serious.
I didn’t want them to subvert their own needs just because they thought it would make me happy. It did the exact opposite. Sometimes, when I got these small glances into who the women used to be, before I was able to show them their worth, it made me impossibly sad.
“We will,” Ainsley promised.
“Good.” I nodded in satisfaction.
Then we each pulled out food from our packs and started to munch away in silence. Mira kept her watchful gold eyes trained on the forest, and she continually glanced around to make sure no unwanted creatures would suddenly try to eat us alive.
I tore into a hunk of tarrel jerky and let the sweet flavor settle on my tongue. It had an interesting texture when dried, almost like a dehydrated mango.
Just as I’d finished my filling piece of meat and was ready to move on to the dried fruit I packed, a panther like roar screamed through the trees above us.
“A fycan!” Ainsley gasped.
In a flash, she and Jemma had their bows raised and aimed at two different spots in the forest, and it only took Mira and me a few seconds longer to grab our own weapons. The warrior opted for her sea glass sword, while I nocked an arrow in my bow and waited.
“What the bloody fuck is a fycan?” Mira growled.
“Trust me, you don’t want to know,” I whispered back.
The four of us waited in silence for a few moments to see where the hell the cat was. It was so damn silent in that forest, I could have sworn I would have heard a pin drop.
Which is why it nearly scared the shit out of me when one of the huge, cougar-like predators dropped down from the tree above us and straight into the center of the circle.
“Fucker of mothers!” Mira shouted in shock.
At the exact same time, the two deer women and I let our arrows fly straight at the fycan. Mine landed in its eye, as did Ainsley’s, and Jemma’s pierced its heart.
We scarcely had time to breathe, though, because it turned out the fycan was not alone.
And by “not alone,” I meant the asshole had a shit ton of friends with him.
The instant the giant cat’s body thudded to the forest floor, there was the crack of leaves and branches above us, followed by the angry screams of many beasts.
I couldn’t even count the number of cats as they skidded down the trunks of the trees or leapt into the center of the clearing, with their eyes murderous and their saber-like fangs bared threateningly.
I whirled around, nocked an arrow, and took aim at the cat that scrabbled down the tree behind me, but I’d hardly had a chance to pull my arrow back when a massive, clawed paw swiped at me from the right side.
I dodged the claws and tucked into a roll, which also managed to afford me a better view of what we were dealing with.
By my rushed count, there were at least ten of the cats, and, if my ears were correct, there were another couple in the trees above us.
Fuck. This was going to be a tough fight.
I swiftly tucked my bow across my body and yanked my sword from its holster at my side, ready to fight even if my brain knew there was almost no chance of winning.
The only thing we could do was get the hell out of there.
“Run!” I shouted out to the group.
A fycan leapt down from a tree and came at me like a massive flying squirrel, so I snatched the opportunity and drove my blade right through its exposed heart. As fast as I could, I yanked my sword from the fycan’s carcass and took off in the same direction as Mira, Ainsley, and Jemma.
And the fycans took right off after us.
The pound of our footsteps on the forest floor was mixed in with the bounding steps of giant paws and the crackle of the branches above us.
We were boxed in behind and above.
I spun around and started to run backwards as I swapped my sword for my bow again. Between glancing back to see where I was going and turning forward to keep an eye on my enemy, the whole thing was a lot less graceful than I would have liked. But I finally got an arrow ready and took aim at the nearest fycan, a fat motherfucker with a missing right saber.
“Take this, asshole!” I shouted and let the arrow fly.
Right into its massive, hungry eyes.
The beast faltered and crashed immediately, which thankfully took out two more cats behind him.
“Brilliant idea, Ben!” Ainsley shouted.
I glanced over to see she and Jemma follow my lead. Only they did it all about a thousand times more gracefully. It was pretty damn impressive how they were able to run backward and shoot arrows into the cats at the same time.
“Above you!” Mira suddenly screamed.
I glanced up in time to see a fycan drop down from the green leaves with what looked like a smile on his face.
I didn’t have enough time to react and was caught under the beast as it hit the ground. I ducked so my head avoided its teeth and was instead buried in its armpit, and then I threw a wild right haymaker into its side to send us both into a roll. My hand searched for my sword as the beast screeched, yelled, and attempted to twist itself so it could bite my head off.
Finally, my fingers found the hilt of my sword, and as I yanked it up and out, I shredded through the fycan’s torso in the process. The claws stopped desperately tearing at me, the mouth stopped trying to bite my head off, and the beast shuddered to a halt on top of me.
I was equally frozen when I realized that thick, warm, blue blood coated me from head to toe as it leaked out of the giant cat’s midsection.
“Fucking gross!” I exclaimed and suppressed a gag. I shoved the body off me with all my might and quickly leapt to my toes, ready to take on whatever cat might try to rip me to shreds next.
I whipped around and checked all around me, but thankfully, we were fycan free. The ground was littered with corpses that had either been sliced to bits by Mira and me, or shot full of arrows by Ainsley and Jemma.
“They’re all dead,” Jemma panted. She stared around at the animals with massive, wide eyes, and her small chest heaved up and down from the effort.
“Take that, you fuckers of mothers!” Mira growled at the dead fycans.
“Damn, where did they all come from?” I asked, mostly to myself. I’d never expected an entire pack to come out and try to destroy us like that.
“That was … ” Ainsley trailed off as she stared at the corpses like the rest of us.
For a moment, as I stared at her shocked white face and heaving chest, I thought she was about to collapse from the murders she’d just committed, but then she turned and flashed me the brightest, most brilliant smile I’d ever seen in my life.
“Amazing!” the blonde woman finished. “I feel so energized!”
The beauty lifted up a slim arm to show us all how it shook with the adrenaline.
“Good!” I laughed. “That’s how it feels to save your own life!”
“I love this.” She grinned. “Is this how it feels to defeat the invaders? Will I feel like this when I kill them?”
“Let’s hope so.” I grinned back at her newfound enthusiasm for bloodlust. I supposed her reluctance to kill only extended to the animals she deemed innocent now.
“Welcome to the side of badasses.” Mira grabbed Ainsley in a massive bear hug. “Now you are a powerful warrior woman.”
For a second, Ainsley went stiff, but then she melted into the sisterly hug.
“I am very happy to be a warrior woman,” the blue-eyed beauty laughed.
“I want to be one, too!” Jemma chimed in with a pout. “A badass? Is that what you called it?”
“It means you’re tough and strong,” I explained to her, but then a drop of fycan blood slid across my lips, and I gagged. “Gods, this is disgusting.”
I glanced down at my creamy shirt and tan tunic, which were now a shiny blue thanks to the massive torrent of blood that had poured down on me moments ago. I glared angrily at the fycan’s dead corpse and kicked it for good measure.
“You are rather dirty, Ben,” Jemma laughed. “But I do not mind.”
She flashed me a devilishly sneaky grin, and my penis wanted to take over for a split second and wrap her up in my arms for a long kiss. But, alas, we had business to attend to and wargs to spy on.
Which might be pretty damn difficult, I realized when I looked around.
I had no idea where we were. We’d gotten so fucking turned around in the damn cougar fight, no pun intended, that I’d lost the trail I’d been trying to follow.
“Shit,” I murmured as I stared at the completely unfamiliar trees. The sun had gone down while we’d been embroiled in the fight, and it was now so low in the sky it would be no help to us in a little while. Not to mention, we were so off from my original trail that we were likely to just end up on a random stretch of beach, and not in the same place the house was built at all.
“We’re off the trail, huh?” Mira asked as she picked up on my silent inner battle.
“Yep,” I replied. “And something tells me it’s not such a great idea to spend the night out here in the forest.”
“Oh, no,” Ainsley gasped and shook her head vigorously. “We’re in fycan territory.”
Perfect.
“Alright, let’s--” I was about to speak when I heard a gruff, loud voice carry through the trees to us.
“It’s been two weeks, and we haven’t had a capture,” the voice snarled. “The bosses are pissed. What do you think they’re going to do.”
All four of us froze when the voice spoke, and we stared at each other like four deer caught in metaphorical headlights.
Then the voice grew closer.
I quickly motioned for the women to climb up into the nearest tree. We each grabbed onto a low hanging branch and scrambled up just high enough that we were hidden among the leaves and could watch as the wargs grew closer. Mira and I were in the first tree on the edge of the clearing, and Ainsley and Jemma both gracefully lifted themselves into the tree next to us. I could just barely make out the outlines of their heads through the leaves, and I hoped the women would be equally as hidden from the ground.
“Rumor is there’s going to be punishments,” a much raspier voice answered.
The two wargs lumbered through the trees and into the small clearing right below us. Their massive, clawed feet crunched the leaves and sank into the soft dirt as they walked. One of them was shorter, and a bit fatter around the middle, with a missing eye and a disgusting snout that dripped wet, slimy drool onto the dirt below him, like he didn’t have the decency to swallow his damn spit. The other warg was tall and lean, and I could see his ribs under the skin of his chest. He rubbed the oily black fur on the top of his head with a clawed hand, and I grimaced at the long, yellow fingernails coated in dirt and what looked like gooey, dried blood.
Nasty.
I held my breath and waited for the wargs to notice the three dead fycans that laid on the ground, half in and half out of the clearing. If they did, I had a good feeling we’d have a battle on our hands.
Thankfully, as smart as the other wargs had seemed, these two didn’t appear to have the gift of observation.
But just as I thought that, the warg lifted its ugly head and took a long whiff of the air.
“Smell that?” he asked his bu
ddy.
“It’s blood,” the other warg growled. “Just like what we’ll be if the masters get mad.”
“You think it’ll be as bad as last time?” the first warg murmured, but he suddenly stopped in the clearing, directly below me. He was so damn close I could have reached down and touched the slimy hair on his disgustingly big head if I wanted to.
I sucked in a breath when I noticed our feet had made imprints on the moist dirt, too, but thankfully, the wargs were too damn stupid to bother to look down and notice that themselves.
Next to me, Mira slowly drew her sword, ready to slice open the wargs’ throats.
I was about to let her, too, when I had a thought. Then I shot out a hand as quietly as I could and laid it on her wrist.
The warrior looked at me in confusion, but I just shook my head once and carefully pointed to the wargs’ feet.
The feet that left massive, easy to follow footprints in the dirt below us.
Mira’s gold eyes popped open in understanding, and a sly smile spread over her pretty features. Then she nodded once and relaxed her sword arm.
I turned my attention back to the wargs below us and made sure to stay as still as possible.
I wanted to track them. We may have gotten turned around thanks to those fucking fycans, but I knew we could get back on track if we followed the wargs back to their camp.
“I don’t know if it’ll be as bad.” The second warg shrugged. “But I hope they take you before me.”
“Asshole,” the first warg spat.
“What’s this?” the raspy voiced warg asked suddenly, and he nudged the corpse of the fycan I’d killed.
Damn. They’d finally noticed. I waited, though, not ready to give Mira the go ahead for the kill just yet.
“Somebody slashed it,” the lean warg snapped, like it was so obvious. “What do you think happened?”
“Yeah, I know damn well someone slashed it, you bastard,” the fat one replied. “But who? You think it was--wait, look at this!”
He stomped over to the other side of the clearing, where one of Jemma’s arrows had landed right in the shiny black eye of a now dead fycan. The warg yanked it out and stared at the arrow tip in genuine confusion.